


anything that brings you back home to me

by tokiwas



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 22:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokiwas/pseuds/tokiwas
Summary: Originally posted in the Pacific Rim Kink Meme way back in 2013.Prompt: "They find a toddler who has nightmares about a bright white light in Striker's escape pod. Herc gets to raise his little boy in a world without kaijuu, though Chuck eventually regains all of his memories."





	anything that brings you back home to me

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Signs" by Bloc Party

Sometimes the water gives you back your ghosts, whether dead or alive.

Sometimes, the water gives you back ghosts you didn’t lose there.

But sometimes those two ghosts are the same person.

**

The ocean gives a child of war back her rescuer.

The ocean gives a soldier back a son.

But Hercules Hansen had lost his son twice: once when the child was twelve, and the second time when the child was twenty-one. And the ocean returned him a five year old child.

**

The child is burnt and bleeding but alive, and that is all Herc needs to know.

He doesn’t feel the same way the doctors feel, the same way the rescue team feels. They are shocked and confused that Chuck Hansen returned as a five year old boy. But all Herc knows is that he has his son back, and whether he’s five or twelve or twenty one, Herc will always remember him as the tiny baby he held in his arms for the first time in a hospital in Sydney twenty one years ago, so it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he has his son back.

Herc stays by the child’s side for the entire day. He handles his work from the medical bay, and Tendo brings him take away from the Mess Hall when he delivers reports and papers needing the Marshall’s signature. He leaves Max in the care of one of Striker’s techs, promising to take him back once Chuck wakes up.

When no one sees he lets his defences down and stops being a soldier, he allows himself to be a father and cries into small limp hands, tells the unconscious child how proud he is of him, how much he loves him.

**

Herc wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of a child crying.

It takes him a while to realize that the screaming child is the one whose fingers are intertwined with his own.

Chuck’s face screams fear and all Herc can decipher from his cries is something about a white light as he holds the boy close and tells him he’s okay. His son doesn’t seem to remember anything else, and Herc doesn’t press the issue. All his son needs now is to know that he’s okay, that he’s safe and his dad is here and is going to make it okay.

They both fall back asleep with tear-stained faces, fingers still locked together.

**

Days pass.

Chuck still doesn’t seem to remember anything. Herc makes sure nobody brings up the subject of Kaiju or Jaegers, nothing to do with the war. If the boy can’t remember the war, there’s no need to tell him something that would traumatize him. He doesn’t even allow the doctors to bring up anything. The doctors are still confused, why did Chuck Hansen return as a child? They want to perform tests on him, but Herc doesn’t let them stick even one needle into the boy.

Herc doesn’t leave Chuck’s side at all. He stays by him and talks to him about flying planes in the sky, and it makes Chuck happy. He holds him tight and comforts him when Chuck cries about his injuries. He even feeds Chuck on a few occasions when Chuck complains about how his arms hurt. Herc had chose to be a soldier to be a father in the only way he knew how, which was to protect his son from monsters, but now there was no war or monsters and Herc could finally be the father he had always wanted to be, the father he had never been.

Chuck can’t go even one night without waking up screaming because of the white light and it worries Herc. He stays up all night so that he’s awake to comfort his son when the child wakes from the nightmare. Sometimes he even climbs into the bed, lets his son curl up against his chest and fall asleep listening to the sound of his heartbeat. Sometimes it’s the only way Chuck can fall back asleep, knowing he’s safe in his father’s one armed hug, listening to daddy shush him to sleep.

**

Despite the nightmares and the injuries, Chuck acts relatively like how he used to when he was five.

It makes Herc happy to see Chuck exclaim and laugh at his stories about him in his RAAF days, it makes him feel content, like how it used to be when Angela was still alive. Even back in those days he was barely at home, so it warmed his heart to see how lively and cheerful Chuck used to be when he was a child. Herc clings on to the child’s happiness, he does everything he can to make Chuck happy, to forget the dreams of white light that creeps up on him at night.

Raleigh and Mako and Tendo visit Chuck sometimes, and they are surprised at the difference between the five year old child and the twenty one year old man. After his initial shyness at new people, Chuck opens up to them, asks them lots of questions and tells them about his daddy who flies planes to protect people.

_This is enough_ , Herc thinks, every time he sees Chuck laugh and smile.  _This is enough for me._

**

Chuck constantly asks where Angela is and Herc doesn’t have the heart to tell him.

He doesn’t lie and make up stories where she is. He just hugs the boy whenever he asks, and Chuck drops the subject after a few minutes. Herc wonders whether Chuck has a short attention span or whether he really does understand what the hug means, that daddy doesn’t want to talk about mommy. He presumes that Chuck is too young to understand, at least, with the present state he’s in, but something tells him despite the young age, despite the loss of memory, Chuck still has been in his brain, and he understands him in ways other people can’t. The way Chuck sometimes reaches out to touch the exact spot where Herc broke his arm the exact moment it starts to throb in pain. The way Chuck tangles his fingers with Herc’s whenever Herc feels tears well up in his eyes because his son is alive, everything is okay. The way Chuck doesn’t ask him for stories when Herc is doing work by his bedside.

Herc feels the same way too, the way that he can understand this child in a way he didn’t understand the five year old Charles Hansen who he lost at twelve years old.

He doesn’t understand it, but it doesn’t matter to him.

Chuck just being alive and happy is enough.

**

Chuck’s memories come back to him.

Herc finds out the day he wakes up to the sound of Chuck crying, and when he comforts him Chuck just says “mommy’s dead.”

Herc freezes and he can’t stop the tears from forming, he presses his forehead against Chuck’s and cries, begs him, “please don’t hate me, please don’t hate me.”

Chuck doesn’t say anything , he goes dead quiet, and Herc fears that the five year old child will push him away, that he’ll lose his son for the third time and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing his child again. But the boy tugs at his good hand, still without saying anything, and it’s a sign that he wants to sleep next to daddy.

Even if it isn’t forgiveness, Herc grasps at the offer like a lifeline.

**

More memories return to Chuck with each passing day.

One day he turns to Herc and asks “daddy, where’s Max?” despite how Max only came into Chuck’s life when he was thirteen. Herc spends the whole day convincing the hospital staff to let Max in the hospital for just one day, and the doctors grudgingly agree. For the whole of the next day Herc swears he’s never seen anything more beautiful than his five year old son laughing and playing with his dog.

The next question Chuck asks is “where’s Uncle Scott?”

Herc had always expected Chuck to ask painful questions, but it still didn’t ease the pain any less. He just says, “Uncle Scott’s still alive” and holds his son tight in his arm. Chuck doesn’t say anything, doesn’t press further, just keeps quiet.

Chuck dreams less of the white light and more of kaiju. He wakes up screaming about monsters getting him and Herc has to hold him, tell him there are no more monsters, they’re all gone and everything’s safe. Chuck doesn’t sleep unless he’s in his father’s embrace anymore. 

As more memories come back, Chuck’s behavior changes. He becomes less lively, more quiet and subdued. It’s not a very drastic change to other people, but it still worries Herc. He sees glimpses of the teenage stranger he once knew in the five year old child, and the biggest fear of his is that this child will push him away, turn away from him just like how the twelve year old Charles Hansen used to do.

But overall Chuck still looks like the boy that once loved him, and Herc holds on to that, refuses to let it go.

**

One night Chuck wakes up gasping as if he can’t breathe, and the sound frightens Herc as he tries to calm the boy down.

After Chuck’s gasps finally even out into ragged breaths, Herc gains the courage to ask the child what he dreamt of.

Chuck’s reply stuns Herc. “It wasn’t a bad dream, daddy. It was the drift.”

Herc stares at Chuck for a long time, without saying anything. It’s Chuck who breaks the silence again.

“I’m sorry daddy.” His voice breaks and he starts crying. “I’m sorry I hated you.”

Herc can’t help but cry too.

**

Chuck starts telling his doctors and visitors stories of his kaiju kills.

It shouldn’t make Herc happy to see a five year old tell stories about how he, in his big giant robot, along with daddy, beats up huge scary monsters, but he can’t help but smile at the enthusiasm in Chuck’s voice when he tells his stories. Sometimes Herc even adds in a few details, things Chuck can’t recall, like the names of the Kaiju, the names of Striker’s weapons. His visitors find Chuck’s stories very impressive, and they tell him stories about other robots beating monsters, but Chuck has already gotten the impression that his own robot ( _"Striker Eureka, daddy said"_ ) is the coolest, bestest most awesomest robot to ever exist, and he insists on it, much to the amusement of his visitors.

(Herc secretly thinks the same anyway, so he doesn’t contradict)

When Chuck asks him what happened to their robot, all Herc can answer is, “it blew up all the monsters, so it’s gone now.”

“But then if the robot blew up, what happened to us?”

“Well, we’re here. We’re alive. We both got hurt, but we’re alive. And we’re okay.”

**

When Chuck is discharged from the hospital, Herc takes him back to the Shatterdome to figure out what to do next. 

Ever since Stacker told him he would be piloting Striker Eureka, Herc had promised himself that he would soldier on no matter what. Even if the mission failed. Even if he lost his son. He would be inheriting Stacker’s position as a fixed point - the last man standing - and he had to do the job well.

But now Chuck is back, and Herc doesn’t really know what to do. 

Does he retire as Marshall? Or does he bring Chuck up in the Shatterdome. Herc doesn’t want to spend any time away from his boy, now that he’s been given a second chance to make things right. But he still has responsibilities - Stacker’s responsibilities, and the hope of a rebuilding world on his shoulders. Herc would choose Chuck over the entire world, but at the same time he doesn’t want to ditch everything and run for his own selfish decisions.

Which makes it a relief when Mako tells him Stacker will return as Marshall of the Shatterdome once he recovers. “I’ve argued with him,” she says. “Now that the world is saved, shouldn’t he take a break? But sensei is adamant. He says he doesn’t want to die doing nothing. He wants to die doing something worthwhile.” Herc catches a ghost of a smile drift across her face. “That’s what his sister would have done, he says. That’s what Tamsin-san would have done too.”

Herc promises Mako that he’ll take care of Stacker’s work until he recovers. He doesn’t want Stacker to constantly worry about his work while he’s still recovering.

Chuck doesn’t seem to mind the Shatterdome. He plays with Max in daddy’s office when Herc does paperwork. He remakes friends with the members of Striker Eureka’s crew who stays behind to help out in the aftermath. Sometimes he runs errands for Herc and every time that happens the whole Shatterdome can’t stop talking about the cute little five year old who ran to LOCCENT with a bulldog waddling after him, telling Mr. Choi the paper is signed.

Herc doesn’t think he’s ever felt this content when doing work, with the calming silence of his office, the soft sound of Chuck’s breathing, sleeping on Herc’s lap while he does paperwork, Max asleep at his feet.

**

Chuck finally regains the last of his memories a few days after he is discharged.

Herc finds him crying in their old quarters after looking for him for the whole day, worried that the boy had gotten lost. He asks what’s wrong and Chuck looks up at him, says softly, “I died.”

Herc freezes, and swallows the lump in his throat, and goes over to the bed, hugging the boy tightly.

“That’s what the white light was, daddy?” he asks in a small voice. “That light was the payload blowing up?”

“Don’t think about it,” Herc says quickly. “Don’t think about it, you’re alive, you didn’t die. Stacker saved you.”

“And I became a kid again.”

Chuck looks up at him, and Herc finally sees the twenty one year old boy who kissed the bulldog a few hours prior to his death, the twenty one year old boy that looked him straight in the eye, and told him, “I know them all, I always have”.

“Is there any way for me to go back?” Chuck asks after a long time.

“Nothing so far,” Herc replies softly.

“Do you like me being a kid, daddy?”

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Herc says firmly. “You’re always my son, no matter how old you are.”

Chuck clutches at Herc’s good arm, and Herc wraps him safely in his one armed hug.

“I think I need to say sorry to Mako,” Chuck mumbles after a pause. “I said a bad word to her.”

Herc laughs despite himself.

**

Herc takes Chuck and Max on a long holiday when Stacker returns.

He takes them around the world. First back to Australia, where Herc takes Chuck to all the places he used to love. Then Chuck gets to choose where they want to go.

They go to England and France and Germany, places that were never affected by the Kaiju. They go to Manila and Japan, Mexico and Costa Rica, the United States of America.

Herc does this to take a break from work, to figure out what’s next for the both of them.

**

Chuck still dreams of the white light and wakes up screaming. Herc is always awake to comfort when that happens. 

Sometimes Herc dreams of the sound of flipping switches and the blast when Striker detonated the payload. He wakes up gasping for breath and he is always comforted by the warmth of his son’s body, curled up against his chest. 

The nightmares don’t end for the both of them. Herc doesn’t think it will ever end.

But it doesn’t matter, because Chuck is alive. And Herc doesn’t think anything can make him happier than walking along the streets of some foreign country, hand in hand with his son, their dog trotting at their heels.

They’ll have to figure out what’s next eventually. But Herc doesn’t want to rush it. He wants to take all the time in the world, spend as much time as he can with his family without caring about anything else. And nothing else matters to Herc other than the fact that Chuck is alive and happy.

They can figure it out later.

They can take as much time as they want.

They have the time anyway.


End file.
